Charming the Darkness: Darkness, #4

By Shiela Stewart

Daniel Vega had never been comfortable as a human so when he was offered eternal life as a vampire, he turned his back on his family and welcomed the darkness. Then Chaos, the one man Danny thought he could always count on, goes missing.

 

Now, shunned by his own kind, it seems that leaving Jacob's Cove is his only option. Until he crashes into a high-spirited redhead.

 

Born from witches, Starla Raine has spent her entire life learning to control and manage her powers. Drawn to Jacob's Cove, a city magically cloaked in darkness, Starla runs into Daniel, a man connected to the infamous spell, and she knows just what to do. Hold him hostage and, use any means possible to make him give her what she wants.

 

The two forge an unlikely partnership, with Danny agreeing to help Starla find the ritual, but only if she'll work with him to locate Chaos. At first he doesn't mind using her magical abilities, or her body, for his own gain. Sex is just sex, after all… until someone's heart gets in the way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Champagne Book Group
• Release date: Aug 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781771552493

Book preview

Charming the Darkness

Darkness, 4

Shiela Stewart

CHAMPAGNE BOOK GROUP

Charming the Darkness

This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

Published by Champagne Book Group

4736 Royal Avenue PMB 109155, Eugene OR 97402

U.S.A.

~ * ~

Second Edition

eISBN: 978-1-77155-249-3

© 2016 Shiela Stewart All rights reserved.

Cover Art by Sierra Hart

Champagne Book Group supports copyright which encourages creativity and diverse voices, creates a rich culture, and promotes free speech. Thank you by complying by not scanning, uploading, and distributing this book via the internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher. Your purchase of an authorized electronic edition supports the author’s rights and hard work and allows Champagne Book Group to continue to bring readers fiction at its finest.

www.champagnebooks.com

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Other Books by Shiela Stewart

Darkness

Surviving the Darkness, Book 8

Consuming the Darkness, Book 7

Penetrating the Darkness, Book 6

Tempting the Darkness, Book 5

Charming the Darkness, Book 4

Embracing the Darkness, Book 3

Desiring the Darkness, Book 2

Seducing the Darkness, Book 1

To anyone who has ever felt like they didn’t

belong. There is always a rainbow at the

end of the storm.

Prologue

Jacob’s Cove, 2005

It was just past midnight when Danny Vega slunk from his bed. Still fully dressed, he crept to his bedroom window. In the bed only a few feet away, his twin brother, Dante, slept soundly. Danny did his best to stay quiet so as not to wake him.

Tonight he would finally be someone.

Cautiously, he slid the window open, cringing when it creaked. He held his breath, looking over his shoulder at his still sleeping brother. Letting out a sigh of relief, Danny pushed the window open all the way. Hoping up onto the ledge, he sat there a moment, staring at the old oak tree directly in front of him. He’d shimmied down that tree so many times, sneaking from his bedroom after being grounded. It was a wonder his father hadn’t chopped it down yet. God knew he’d given him reason enough to do it. It wasn’t that he wanted to get in trouble, most of the time it just…happened. And it wasn’t always his fault, still…

Danny just never felt like he belonged. Anywhere.

He knew his family loved him, and he did love them back, but there was always something inside of him that didn’t feel right. Something was missing. He hoped to change that tonight.

Leaping onto the thick branch only a few feet away, Danny clasped his hands onto the hard bark and looked down. With practiced skill, he shimmied down from the tree and jumped the last foot onto the ground.

His heart beat so hard he could feel his chest thumping with it.

Giddy with excitement, Danny hurried across the front lawn. It was so dark out. Wasn’t it fitting that the night he’d decided to give up his life there would be no moon in the sky?

Danny! Danny!

He stopped mid track and turned to his brother who had his head hung out of the open bedroom window, whisper-shouting to him. Danny simply waved at him and continued on his way. Dante was not going to stop him this time. Danny was determined and even if he was locked in a room he’d find a way to break free and do what he longed to do.

If Mom or Dad find out you snuck out again, you are going to be in so much trouble, Dante chastised quietly from the window.

I don’t care, Danny shouted back just above a whisper. After tonight, they’d have no control over him. He heard a noise in the trees at the edge of his property, and he knew who it was.

It was time.

Danny!

Ignoring his brother, Danny rushed to the bushes and just as he’d suspected, his friend stepped out of the shadows.

His large frame and dark, menacing looks would scare anyone, but not Danny. He felt closer to him than he with his own father. I came just as you asked, Chaos.

Perfect! It seems, though, that we have company.

Danny looked back at his brother who was now scooting out of the bedroom window and onto the tree. Don’t worry about him. Let’s get out of here.

Do you still wish to give me your life?

Danny’s heart sped up just a little more. Yeah… He cleared his throat. He looked back over his shoulder at his brother, at the house he’d grown up in.

He had a good home, loving parents, a brother who was always there for him and sister, he adored when she wasn’t being super crabby. He had food in his belly, a roof over his head and never went without anything. Yet he didn’t feel like he belonged, though he couldn’t understand why. He and Dante were completely alike in features and body and blood. Yet Dante didn’t feel like they connected. There was always something inside of him that was different.

Dante was the calm one, and Danny was the rebel. They shared the same blood yet were complete opposites. Danny thrived on bad attention, and Dante did everything in his power to prevent it. Danny needed excitement where Dante preferred the quiet. His sister was the same way. She would much rather stay home and watch TV, then go out with friends. Not Danny. He hated sitting still. He hated being bored. And no one in his family understood that.

He didn’t feel like he connected with anyone in his family. After tonight he wouldn’t have to worry about any of that.

Still, he was going to miss everyone. Sure, he hated school, hated the chores his parents made him do, hated that they didn’t let him have more freedom. But they weren’t all bad. He wondered what his mother’s reaction will be when she finds out he’s not home. What was she going to do when he didn’t come home that night, or the night after that? Would she cry? Of course she would. And it hurt to think that he’d make her cry.

Maybe he wasn’t ready for this yet. Well—

It all happened so fast. Like a blur in the darkness, Chaos lunged. Danny felt the hands on his shoulders a split second before the sharp pointed teeth pierced through his skin.

It hurt and he wanted to scream, but his voice just wouldn’t come. This was wrong, he wanted it to stop now, but the more he fought, the tighter Chaos held on. He felt himself drifting as Chaos pulled the blood from his veins, and Danny began to weep.

As his vision began to blur, he heard his brother screaming his name.

~ * ~

Danny woke tied to a cot in a room smelling of must and stale water. The overhead light was off and there wasn’t a window to be seen, so it was pitch black. Yet he could see with perfect clarity.

Where was he?

He tugged his arms, and the rope burned into his skin. Why was he tied?

Then it all came back to him. He’d met Chaos in his yard and given his life. Danny ran his tongue over his teeth and felt the tips of his fangs sharp as razors. He was a vampire.

He was a vampire.

What had he done?

This wasn’t right. He wanted to go home? He changed his mind. He didn’t want this anymore.

Despite the burning on his wrists, he struggled against the ropes. Then he began to scream. He kicked his feet, his body bucking wildly as he fought the restraints. He had to get home before his parents knew he was missing.

Let me go! Let me go! he shouted over and over as he fought to break free. When the rope gave on his left hand, he immediately began working on the other. He had to get out of here. Now.

He managed to free his right hand and the instant he did, he ran for the door. It was locked.

Slamming his fists against the steel door, Danny hollered for his life. When he heard someone outside the door, he didn’t stop screaming, but raised his voice an octave. You have to let me out of here. I have to go home.

The locks clicked, and as the door opened, he prepared to make a run for it. He stopped dead in his tracks when Chaos stepped through the threshold.

What seems to be the problem, my boy?

This was the man he looked up to, admired, wanted to be like. Yet now Danny had reservations. "I need to go home. My parents will be worried sick about me.

Chaos closed the door, encasing them both in the dark, dank room. You are home, my boy. This is your home now.

No, no I made a mistake. I need to go home now. He darted for the door but it was still locked. Please, let me go.

The hand that rested on his shoulder startled him.

This was just what you wanted. You don’t belong with those humans and we both know it. You’re different. Like me. He turned Danny to face him, and the smile did little to comfort Danny. We are your family now.

I should tell them where I am. I can still be with you and be with them too.

They won’t understand who you are now. They’ll try to kill you like all humans do. This is your world now, Daniel.

No, it wasn’t. Was it? He was so confused. He loved his family, yet he didn’t feel like he belonged. Still…he wasn’t sure this was where he belonged either.

He was so confused. They won’t kill me. They’ll understand.

Will they? They didn’t understand you before now. What makes you think they’ll accept you the way you are now. This is your home now, my boy. Now come. You need to feed.

Danny walked back to the cot, reluctantly, with Chaos and as they sat down on the bed, Chaos pulled the sleeve back on his right wrist and using the index finger of his left hand, sliced his wrist open. The smell of the blood called to him and repulsed him all the same.

Drink.

Danny looked down at the gray blood oozing out of Chaos’s veins and realized what he was supposed to do.

And he couldn’t.

No! He ran for the door, and once again pounded his fists against the metal. He’s screamed, he cried and he pleaded to get out of there.

Enough!

He was hoisted off his feet and carried back to the bed. As Chaos tossed him down, pinning him with one hand, he shoved the bleeding wrist into Danny’s face.

No! No! No! Jerking his head from side to side, he refused to give in to the calling and take the blood into his mouth. His body ached so fiercely he thought it might break in two.

Drink!

Chaos shoved the wrist against him mouth, and the instant the blood touched his lips Danny felt the need overtake him.

As he pulled the sweet intoxicating nectar into his mouth, tears fell down his face.

One

Jacob’s Cove, 2025

Five months of total darkness

Darkness, it surrounded him. Once he craved it. Now he despised it. For over five months he’d lived in total darkness. There was no sun, no stars, no clouds in the sky.

How could a vampire miss the sun? Yet Danny Vega did. Sure, he didn’t vaporize the instant he was touched by the sun’s rays like they portrayed in the folklore, but the sun could do a fair amount of damage to a vampire. It boiled the skin.

He could walk a block or two in the sun and not sizzle instantly, though any bare skin reachable by the sun would be fried nice and crispy. And the healing time for third degree burns was not quick and definitely not pleasant. Danny knew this from experience. He’d been locked out of his home a time or two by some of his wisecracking, bloodsucking relatives.

He remembered back to his youth when he’d woken up to the stinging sensation of his face on fire. Of course, he’d panicked and had run for the door, only to find it locked. On the other side, he’d heard the cackle of laughter. To this day he had no idea how he’d gotten out there without waking up.

He hadn’t been liked by many of his peers but it hadn’t bothered Danny much. Then.

Now was another story.

Four months ago, Chaos, the one man he had looked up to, admired above anyone else, had disowned him, and in doing so, had given all those who hated him reason to not associate with him. Even the people he thought had been his friends didn’t want to have anything to do with him.

That hurt.

He’d done a lot of thinking since the day Chaos shunned him. What else did he have to do except think? And while thinking, he’d looked back at his past, at his life, and wondered if the man he’d looked up to for the past twenty years was as wonderful as he had always thought.

All Danny had done was end up a prisoner of Chaos’s enemies, Trinity and Basil. It hadn’t been his fault. He’d been tricked by his brother. His twin brother. But Danny had held strong and hadn’t given Chaos up.

When Danny had finally been released, Chaos hadn’t wanted anything to do with him. He’d taken the other prisoners back into his fold, but not Danny. Oh, he knew the reason Chaos had turned him away was because of Dante. Chaos didn’t like his minions disobeying him, and Danny had done just that by going to see his brother. He wished Chaos would have listened to him when he tried to explain that he was still on Chaos’s side. Still, he’d shunned him and it had stung deeply.

Then Chaos had been abducted by Fritz, and no one aside from Fritz knew where Chaos was being held. Or at least, not that anyone was telling him. Which didn’t surprise him in the least, given that he was no longer part of the gang, not that he really ever had been a big part. Sure, they accepted him, but Danny always knew that was because Chaos insisted they do so. He wasn’t overly liked among his kind and to this day he didn’t know why. He’d done everything he knew how to be a part of them. Yet from day one, they’d mocked him, teased him, and bullied him.

That seemed to be the story of his life.

As for his brother, Danny still wasn’t sure about him. In the past few months, he’d run into Dante several times, and each time, the tension had been thick between them. Dante had played a pivotal part in keeping Danny locked up in Basil’s dungeon; that wasn’t so easy to overcome.

Oh he knew why Dante had kept him locked up. He’d hoped to convince Danny to switch sides. At the time, Danny had wanted no part of it. He was loyal to Chaos right to the end. And he’d been stabbed in the heart.

But there were times, when he and his brother would stumble upon each other, that Danny felt that familiar connection between him and his twin. That part of him that was whole when he was near his brother.

He just didn’t know what to do about it.

So here he was, all alone in a city beginning to become overcrowded with creatures of every kind, from vampires and werewolves to demons and shape-shifters. Just to name a few.

Since word had gotten out that Jacob’s Cove was encased in darkness, thanks to Chaos’s spell, all the night dwellers wanted to see it for themselves. And they’d stayed. Now, it seemed, they were running the town, and like the people he’d thought of as friends, the newcomers had shunned him. Danny didn’t know why and he didn’t much care.

He was getting the hell out of Jacob’s Cove and all the bad memories that lived inside.

Lifting the collar up on his leather jacket, Danny carried his meager belongings to the flaming red, two-door Laser Coupe he’d stolen two days ago when he decided to leave. Since the cloak of darkness had been cast over the city, the days were steadily growing colder.

He supposed it was to be expected when there was no sun to warm things up. He figured the chill in the air was better than the usual bite the December winds brought. Right now, if the sun was out and the cloak of darkness was gone, there would be a good layer of snow on the ground. He kind of missed it.

It was rather interesting to think of all